PLFantasy

Clean Sheet Rankings  I am hesitant to try and over-engineer these rankings but it has always been my view when I read other fantasy sites that I'd prefer to have as much info as possible and then use my own judgement to decide what is best to rely on. Therefore, given that we are now 6 weeks in, I am going to include the rankings to reflect both the hybrid stats (based on last year's results and this years) as well as the rankings if you purely use this season's data. I have also included below some trends that need factoring into your decisions this week. Hybrid rankings (based on 2009/10 and 2010/11 seasons) Birmingham (0.51) + Tottenham (0.53) Liverpool (0.56) - Stoke (0.62) Man City (0.66) + West Ham (0.76) West Brom (0.78) Chelsea (0.79) Everton (0.91) + Wolves (1.11) Wigan (1.13) Man United (1.20) + Sunderland (1.31) Fulham (1.63) + Blackburn (1.67) + Aston Villa (2.00) Newcastle (2.13) Bolton (2.16) Arsenal (3.17) Blackpool (3.68) 2010/11 ran...

Here we go again. The off season seemed to fly by thanks to the World Cup and it's aftermath but the show must go on and the English Premier League is back with what promises to be a great season. I cannot pick between Chelsea and United and I genuinely feel that both Arsenal and City could be champions come May time. Add in an intriguing managerial appointment at Liverpool, drama galore at Villa and the return of a giant (Newcastle) and the season looks setup for another thriller. Week one throws up some interesting fixtures include a tone setter for Arsenal and Liverpool who clash at Anfield and a rematch of last season's Champions League decider between Spurs and City at White Hart Lane. Elsewhere, there are baptisms of fire for two of the newly promoted sides as Newcastle travel to Old Trafford and West Brom go to Stamford Bridge. Hopefully your fantasy squads are settled by now, but if not then I urge you to look back at some recent articles on goalkeeper selection , s...

Firstly, an apology for the lack of preview last week. Work commitments along with the short game left me caught short. Hopefully everyone was aware of United and City's absence and planned accordingly while picking a captain become somewhat trickier with the likes of Rooney and Tevez absent. The headline game of week 24 will of course be the clash at the Emirates between Arsenal and United, which is probably the biggest game of the season so far. Fantasy wise I don't love the game with these games tending to have a couple of goals and a lack of clean sheets (the only clean sheets in this fixture since 2002 have been the 0-0 in 2005/06). Four more teams have double gameweeks with the highlight of course being league leaders Chelsea who have a pair of road games against two of the weaker sides in the division (though both have actually been decent at home). Double gameweeks are going to play a massive part of the remainder of the season with no less than 14 scheduled over the ne...

The Christmas period was tough for many managers (me included) who suffered through unexpected injuries and then the disruption to the fixture list. This will also be the first gameweek without the departed African players thus testing many managers' squads further. The defensive fixtures aren't too bad this week and with the frigid weather not going anywhere one may expect a few defensive struggles this week and playing 5 at the back might be worth considering. Clean Sheet Rankings Fulham - BUY Burnley - HOLD Man Utd - BUY Arsenal - HOLD Man City - BUY Aston Villa - HOLD Chelsea - HOLD Birmingham - HOLD/SELL Sunderland - SELL Wigan - HOLD West Ham - HOLD Liverpool - HOLD Stoke - HOLD Portsmouth - SELL Hull - SELL Bolton - SELL Wolves - SELL Tottenham - BUY Blackburn - SELL Everton - SELL Defensive fixtures don't get much better than Fulham at home to Portsmouth to the point where if you're squad is thin, Fulham defenders might even warrant some captaincy consideration....

Gameweek 18 Fixtures Portsmouth v Liverpool Aston Villa v Stoke City Blackburn v Tottenham Fulham v Man Utd Man City v Sunderland Arsenal v Hull City Wolves v Burnley Everton v Birmingham West Ham v Chelsea Wigan v Bolton Alot of us suffered a tough gameweek over the midweek games and will be looking to bounce back here. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool all face comparatively weak opposition and so there should be plenty of goals to go around. The premium players should be back in force with Drogba expected to be fit and Torres should surely get a start after his midweek goal. Fabregas appears likely to miss out but his injury is less serious than expected and he could figure next week. Clean Sheet Rankings (adjusted GPG in parentheses) Aston Villa (0.6) - HOLD Arsenal (0.8) - HOLD Man City (1.0) - BUY Man Utd (1.1) - BUY Wolves (1.3) - HOLD Blackburn (1.3) - HOLD/SELL Liverpool (1.4) - BUY Portsmouth (1.4) - SELL Wigan (1.4) - HOLD Birmingham (1.4) - BUY Chelsea (1.5) - BUY Everton (1....

With Van Persie (6 weeks) joining fellow fantasy stud Lampard (3 weeks) on the sidelines, a large portion of fantasy owners will be looking to bring in one or two big name players this week. I have therefore ranked the 10m+ players at each position who will provide the best bang for your buck over the next 6 weeks: Cesc Fabregas - his fixtures aren't great but as with Ronaldo in previous years Fabregas is now a must own player and should probably be captained most weeks. He is the natural replacement for Frank Lampard and will even save you 1.1m as an added bonus. You can make this change with confidence and perhaps target the week 17 game against Portsmouth as a good time to bring Lampad back if you so wish. However, with 43% ownership I'm sure most of you already have Cesc, so lets look slightly down the ownership ladder for our next pick. Andrei Arshavin - Arshavin is the least held of the 10m midfielders and is well placed to prosper in the absence of van Persie. Befor...